No. 11 Texas A&M will look to get back on track when they square off against gritty No. 8 Kentucky on Tuesday in a Southeastern Conference clash in Lexington, Ky.
The game will be the third straight for the Aggies against conference teams ranked in the top 17 of the Associated Press poll. They’ve spilt their past two — winning at then-No. 17 Oklahoma by two points and dropping a 94-88 slugfest at home against then-No. 5 Alabama on Saturday — despite playing without injured leading scorer Wade Taylor IV.
Taylor’s availability for Tuesday’s game still is to be determined.
The Aggies (13-3, 2-1 SEC) hit the road after their heavyweight battle with high-flying Alabama in a game that featured 88 combined free throws. Zhuric Phelps poured in 24 points and Pharrell Payne added 23 to lead Texas A&M’s attack.
The Aggies trimmed a 15-point second-half deficit to three in the final minutes but never pulled in front, mainly because of missed free throws. The Aggies, who had a nine-game winning streak snapped, finished 28 of 48 from the charity stripe and just 4 of 18 on its 3-point attempts.
The loss was Texas A&M’s first in five games against ranked teams this season.
“Every coach would say that when the margin in this league is as thin as it is, you have to purge or cleanse whether the result was good or whether the result was bad,” Aggies coach Buzz Williams said. “From a non-emotional standpoint, you have to figure out how you can diagnose what to learn, but in a quick turnaround, what can you learn that applies to the next game?”
The Wildcats (13-3, 2-1 SEC) head home after a come-from-behind 95-90 win at then-No. 14 Mississippi State on Saturday behind a season-high 27 points by Jaxson Robinson. Kentucky led by five points at halftime and by 14 four minutes into the second half before Mississippi State rallied to take a brief two-point lead eight minutes later.
Ansley Almonor canned a 3-pointer to put the Wildcats back in front and Kentucky outlasted a late Mississippi State rally to bounce back from a loss at Georgia last Tuesday.
Otega Oweh racked up 15 points and eight rebounds for the Wildcats in Saturday’s victory while Andrew Carr had 13 points, Almonor scored 11 and Amari Williams finished with 10 points and 12 rebounds while posting his third double-double of the season. Lamont Butler bundled 10 points with eight assists.
The Wildcats have won three of their past four outings, with Saturday’s victory their first true road win of the season.
“These are tough kids, man. They are tough,” Kentucky coach Mark Pope said. “They’re tough because they’ll fight physically, but they’re tough because they fight so hard to be dialed in on what’s happening, and they’re getting better and better. They’re understanding it more and more.”
Texas A&M has captured the last two meetings with the Wildcats, winning at home in overtime last season to snap a four-game losing streak in the series and then beating Kentucky in the SEC tournament.
